GALLIPOLI RE-UNION

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1935, Page 7

GALLIPOLI RE-UNION

AN AUCKLAND SUCCESS. [PEB PBESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, April 27. Th© returned soldiers’ re-union, to which only Gallipoli men were invited, was held last night in Auckland. The Town Hall concert chamber had been engaged, but the response to the invitation far exceeded expectations, and the hall was badly over-crowded. Some could not get in at all. The splendid spirit of comradeship of Gallipoli was re-kindled. The wartime rank counted for nothing, and the president of the assembly was a farrier in the Signallers. “As a digger to diggers, I ask for order,” he said, as a preliminary to remarking that the name of Anzac was held in the highest esteem throughout New Zealand and the world. He read apologies for absence from Major General Sir W. Sinclair Burgess, and a message of good wishes f orn General Sir A. Godley. Proposing the toast of Fallen Comrades, the president said there had been times when every one of them could have done a little more than they had done, and that, if they had done so, they probably would have fallen with those they were honouring. It was only a matter of years before those left would go out to their rendezvous, and when that time came, let them go out with the same courage as shown by those who fell on the Peninsula.

The lights in the hall were extinguished while the toast was honoured. Later in the evening, it was resolved that a Gallipoli Association be formed and a re-union held annually.